The Museum and Gallery Shows to See in New York This Fall
Krasner and Pollock at the Met, manga in Brooklyn, Arthur Jafa on the Bowery and a Chelsea season stacked with heavy hitters. Our list for fall 2026.
This is a strong fall. The Met pairs Lee Krasner and Jackson Pollock in a show that feels overdue, the Brooklyn Museum hands its galleries to manga, the Frick finally has room for real exhibitions again, and the New Museum is in its first fall in a building twice the size. Chelsea, meanwhile, opened its season with Lee Bul, Lynda Benglis and Tauba Auerbach in the same week.
The rule for this list was simple: every show is confirmed on the museum's or gallery's own site with dates in fall 2026. Where only an opening date is published, that is what we give you. Most gallery shows close in late October, so do those first. Museum shows run into winter.
For ticket hacks, read our free museum days guide. For how the gallery circuit works, read our guide to Chelsea, the Lower East Side and Tribeca.
At a glance.
- 01Krasner and Pollock: Past ContinuousThe show of the season, with more than 120 works
- 02Art of MangaThe first major exhibition in the Americas to treat manga as fine art
- 12Roy Lichtenstein: Like New and Charles Burchfield: ElementalBurchfield's strange, hallucinatory watercolors of weather
- 24The Prime of Your Life: Women Artists Over 75The best group show premise of the season
- When
- Most gallery shows close in late October; museum shows run longer
The big museum shows
Krasner and Pollock: Past Continuous
More than 120 works tracing the parallel lives of two painters who were married, shared a studio and are usually told as one story with a footnote. The show puts them side by side and lets Krasner take up her own room. This is the show of the season.
Go for: Krasner's late work. Know before you go: New York State residents pay what they wish at the Met's ticket counter.
Art of Manga
Billed as the first major exhibition in the Americas to treat manga as fine art, with more than 600 original drawings. A companion installation, "Manga Before Manga," pulls Japanese prints and objects from the museum's own collection to show where the form came from.
Go for: original pages, where you can see the ink and the corrections. Know before you go: it will be crowded on weekends; go on a weekday morning.
Taryn Simon: Father Country I Do Love You
Simon makes exhaustive, uneasy projects out of archives, bureaucracy and power. The Guggenheim is also showing "Guggenheim Pop: 1960 to Now," a look at its Pop holdings, through January 10.
Go for: Simon's precision. Know before you go: pay what you wish on Tuesdays and Sundays from 4 to 5:30pm.
The filmmaker and artist behind "Love Is the Message, the Message Is Death" gets the New Museum's new building for a major show running into January. Opening the same day: Diego Marcon, Ho Tzu Nyen and "The Bowery: Devil's Mile," a show about the street outside the front door.
Go for: Jafa, then the Bowery show. Know before you go: Thursdays from 7 to 9 are pay what you wish, reserved online.
Costume Art
The Costume Institute's 2026 exhibition, which pairs garments from the Met's collection with artworks across the museum to show how clothing and the body shape each other. The Met is also opening "Designing the Gilded Age: Drawings from the Studios of Louis C. Tiffany" on October 22.
Go for: the pairings, which pull fashion out of its usual box. Know before you go: weekday mornings are the only calm time.
Uptown and Midtown
Siena: The Art of Bronze, 1450 to 1500
The first exhibition focused on Siena as a center of Renaissance bronze sculpture, with around forty works. It is exactly the kind of small, scholarly show the Frick does better than anyone.
Go for: the small bronzes, up close. Know before you go: pay what you wish on Wednesdays from 1:30 to 5:30pm.
Kent Monkman: Officer and Laughing Girl
Monkman, the Cree painter who restages European history painting from an Indigenous point of view, makes new work in response to Vermeer's "Officer and Laughing Girl" in the Frick's collection.
Go for: a living painter talking back to an Old Master in the same building. Know before you go: children under 10 are not admitted.
The museum of Austrian and German art reopens its galleries after construction with a show marking its 25th year. Café Sabarsky reopens October 1.
Go for: the Klimt rooms and a slice of Sachertorte after. Know before you go: free on the first Friday of the month, 5 to 8pm.
Objects from two faiths that shared one city for a thousand years. Also on view: "Modernity and Opulence: Women of the Wiener Werkstätte," through November 15.
Go for: the Wiener Werkstätte show before it closes. Know before you go: free every Saturday.
Tone
A new show in the museum's new building on 125th Street, opening alongside the annual artists in residence exhibition. Kapwani Kiwanga's "BLEED" is on view through April.
Go for: the residents show, which is where you meet the next decade. Know before you go: free on Sundays.
"It's Alive! A Century of Animation from the Collection" opened August 1 and runs into 2027. "Taking Back Our Space: Photographic Perspectives," built around Marianne Wex's study of how women and men occupy public space, opened September 20.
Go for: the animation show, which is better than it has any right to be. Know before you go: free for New York State residents on Friday nights.
Downtown and the Meatpacking
Two fall openings at the Whitney. The Lichtenstein show joins "Roy Lichtenstein: 1997," already on view. Burchfield's hallucinatory watercolors of weather and insects are one of American art's strangest bodies of work. The 2026 Whitney Biennial closes October 12, so go now if you have not.
Go for: Burchfield. Know before you go: free on Friday nights from 5 to 10.
I'm So Happy You Are Here: Japanese Women Photographers from the 1950s to Now
A survey of Japanese women photographers across seven decades. Opening the same day: Laia Abril's "On Rape and Institutional Failure."
Go for: a history most people have never been shown. Know before you go: free on the third Thursday of the month.
The only museum in the country devoted to drawing, on Wooster Street, with a show from a major private collection.
Go for: a quiet hour in SoHo. Know before you go: it pairs well with the Tribeca galleries ten minutes south.
Teresa Margolles: En el lugar de los hechos
Margolles makes work from the physical traces of violence in Mexico, and it is not easy. PS1 is free for everyone in 2026.
Go for: a serious show that costs nothing. Know before you go: closed Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
The gallery shows
Gallery shows are free and close fast, mostly in late October. These are the ones we would build a Thursday around.
Lee Bul: The Anatomy of Every Setting Sun
The Korean artist's first show at the gallery's 22nd Street building, running alongside shows by Arp and George Rouy.
Benglis's "KNOTTING, TYING, FOLDING" and Dyson's "Seeing in Blue" on separate floors.
Jordan Wolfson
New sculptures incorporating found photographs, in Wolfson's first New York show with the gallery.
Across the street, Eric N. Mack's "You Red The Shirt Off My Back" runs the same dates at 534 W 21st.
Ruff's "jpegs ny" works from images of September 11. Lowman's shaped canvases take the form of keys.
Beams of projected light that become sculpture in haze. Walk through them.
Hiroshi Sugimoto: Unnatural Habitat
Followed at Lisson by Yu Hong, opening November 4.
A focused show on the Abstract Expressionist who too often gets left out of the story.
The Prime of Your Life: Women Artists Over 75
The best group show premise of the season.
The Shout NY take
Do the galleries first, because they close in October. Do the Met's Krasner and Pollock in November, when the opening crowds have thinned. Save the Brooklyn Museum's manga show for a weekday. And if you only have one free evening, spend it at the Whitney on a Friday before the Biennial closes October 12. For more on the season, see fall things to do in New York and our October events calendar.
Shop the story.
- 01Amazon ↗
Lee Krasner and Jackson Pollock: Art and Life
This book provides deeper insight into the lives and intertwined work of the two painters featured at The Met.
- 02Amazon ↗
The History of Manga Art
Learn about the origins and evolution of the art form celebrated at the Brooklyn Museum exhibition.
- 03Amazon ↗
Arthur Jafa: Love Is The Message, The Message Is Death
Explore the groundbreaking work of the filmmaker and artist with this companion to the New Museum show.
- 04Amazon ↗
New York City Art Galleries Guide
Navigate the city's diverse gallery scene beyond the major museum shows with this comprehensive guide.
- 05Amazon ↗
Portable Sketchbook and Pencil Set
Bring this along to sketch your favorite pieces or jot down observations during your museum and gallery visits.
Book the experience.
The bookable version of this guide, with times and prices on Expedia.
Questions, answered.
- What are the biggest museum exhibitions in New York in fall 2026?
- The Met's Krasner and Pollock show (October 4 to January 31), the Brooklyn Museum's Art of Manga (October 3 to January 31), the Guggenheim's Taryn Simon show (from September 18) and the New Museum's Arthur Jafa show (from September 25) lead the season.
- When does the Whitney Biennial 2026 close?
- The 2026 Whitney Biennial closes October 12. Go on a Friday evening, when the Whitney is free from 5 to 10pm.
- Are gallery shows in New York free?
- Yes. Commercial galleries in Chelsea, the Lower East Side and Tribeca charge nothing. Most are open Tuesday to Saturday, roughly 10 to 6.
- What is the best free way to see a fall museum show?
- Use the museums' free hours: the Whitney is free Friday nights, the Jewish Museum is free on Saturdays and the Guggenheim is pay what you wish on Tuesday and Sunday afternoons. Our free museum days guide has the full schedule.
Next up
The Best Museums in New York CityFrom the big names on Fifth Avenue to the experimental spaces in Queens, this is your guide to the New York museums that are actually worth your time and money.Read it Get the Shout Sheet.
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